Peter Jay Shippy

"A RABBIT AS KING OF THE GHOSTS"

Act One

     There is a wooden quay, a thousand leagues in length
     Two men in morning dress
          carry Wallace Stevens' casket
     The coffer is heavy
     The day is under-the-tongue
          the day is warm
     Every hundred yards the men stop
          to rest
          to mop their brows
          the blue waves lap their brogans
     One hundred becomes fifty becomes ten

     Finally, they pry open the casket
          and each pulls out an armful of poems
     They toss the pages into the air
     A wind takes a lyric
          and pushes it higher

Act Two

     Aboard the reef runner Somnambulisma
     A spy is on watch in the crow's nest
     The defunct crew strikes wan poses
     The Captain potentates

     SPY
I see white birds! Captain!
I see a flock of fair admirals!

     CAPTAIN
Reverse course. Pilot!
Take us to the other ends of the earth!

     The crew erupts in cheers

Act Three

     Every hundred yards, the men stop
          to rest
          and pry open the casket
          and each pulls out an armful of poems….

     CURTAIN

KAPUTNIK

I pull a hat out of my rabbit

It's a flat-topped bowler
with a curly brim, like Cezanne

once wore to paint golden apples

She returns to chomping carrot tufts
from a suede patch near my barn

In the moonlight the greens look like fleece

Garden carrots that run to seed
soon relapse into Queen Anne's lace

and inject venom through stingers
in their taproots, like Cezanne

once bore to taint blonde applets

The white pumpkin crawls up the downspout
hissing like meat on the grill

My rabbit reminds me of an exile
with a lexicon in her warren, no doubt

and a silk purse of sonnets about
starlight buried under her straw

An owl scuds near enough to hear
my own tongue run from that black beak

my own voice calling my bunny home

AH, IT GOES, IS LOST

                                                                           after Cy Twombly

     Primavera

The star takes the dog's nose:
               cartouche, carina

oars saw the blue water
dig blood into the sea

     Estate

A sunflower is drawn across the attic floor

     Autunno

The bark of stars ripples the chestnut's wings

     Inverno

Sea blood
saw water: the

          the snow whispers
the staircase creaks